blockading

verb

present participle of blockade
1
as in guarding
to disallow entry into (a place) by means of a physical barrier at the entry point the militant protestors blockaded the whole area around city hall

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in besieging
to surround (as a fortified place) with armed forces for the purpose of capturing or preventing commerce and communication blockaded the city until it surrendered

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of blockading On one side, legions of determined teenagers protesting for their future by blockading schools and taking part in marches that have sometimes spiraled into violence. — ABC News, 16 Oct. 2026 Anti-riot police officers face protesting students carrying out blockading action outside the secondary school Le Corbusier, in Aubervilliers, northern Paris on October 1, 2026. — Chloe Taylor, CNBC, 2 Oct. 2026 Iran has tried to push world energy prices higher with attacks on the region's oil shipping routes; the United States, in turn, has aimed to wreck Iran's economy by blockading its ports since June and slapping it with increasingly tough sanctions. — Arkansas Online, 1 Oct. 2026 That includes Yemen’s Houthi movement blockading Saudi Arabian maritime traffic near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. — Sasha Rogelberg, Fortune, 3 Aug. 2026 In July, Houthi forces began blockading the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, the corridor linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, in response to renewed Saudi strikes on Yemen. — Frank Ahrens, Forbes.com, 31 July 2026 In December 2022, Baku began ramping up the pressure again, blockading Stepanakert by cutting off its sole road to Armenia, and cutting its gas pipelines and electricity cables. — Literary Hub, 30 July 2026 With just over 100 days until election day, the onetime border-blockading logger faces a steep fundraising climb, a sprawling statewide build-out and Maine’s pivotal role in Democrats’ bid for Senate control. — Kimberlee Kruesi, Los Angeles Times, 20 July 2026 Britain responded with a war-footing, blockading the Bay of Naples. — Matthew Wills, JSTOR Daily, 15 June 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for blockading
  1. guarding
  2. besieging
  3. attacking
Verb
  • The most direct tribute to Tippett came in the battle against two giant droids guarding an overlord’s chamber.
    — Davide Abbatescianni, Variety, 16 Oct. 2026
  • Their day jobs are with the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), a specialized force tasked with guarding the peaks and passes of India’s 2,167-mile (3,488-kilometer) long Himalayan border with China.
    — Helen Regan, CNN Money, 10 Oct. 2026
Definition of guarding
Verb
  • French cities have been shaken in recent weeks by vandalism and looting sparked by cost-of-living demonstrations, amid a broader crisis besieging the country’s lame-duck centrist government that has spiked French bond yields.
    — Brendan Ruberry, semafor.com, 22 Oct. 2026
  • The Houthis also made important gains inland, all but besieging the strategic city of Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city, in a move that augured more Houthi advances.
    — Nabih Bulos, Los Angeles Times, 5 Oct. 2026
Definition of besieging
Verb
  • In July, Brown pleaded guilty to a count of affray at London’s Southwark Crown Court for attacking a music producer with a tequila bottle on the head.
    — Leo Barraclough, Variety, 26 Oct. 2026
  • The approval of Revolution Medicines’ pancreatic cancer drug Rasonque earlier this year showed that a medicine capable of attacking mutations in a group of genes called RAS could prolong survival for patients with the particularly aggressive cancer.
    — Adam Feuerstein, STAT, 26 Oct. 2026
Definition of attacking

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blockades
blockading
blockage
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Cite this Entry

“Blockading.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/blockading. Accessed 27 Oct. 2026.

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